🌏 Meta tags Sage for geothermal power #212

Happy Tuesday!

Hope you stayed cool this Labor Day weekend, and celebrated the news that Fed interest rates are finally cooling off too.

We’re digging deep into the new agreement between Sage Geosystems and Meta, which will use Sage’s geothermal systems to provide clean firm power for a Meta data center.

In other news, distributed and residential energy storage company Swell Energy shuts down, US clean jobs rose at double the national rate, and a new ammonia plant is planned in India.

In deals, $87m for lithium development, $55m for eVTOLs, and $40m for modular microreactors.

And don’t forget — we've got your covered for New York Climate Week events in our CTVC X NYCW Event Tracker.

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Meta’s new power play

Advanced geothermal startup Sage Geosystems is going full steam ahead into a new agreement with Meta to deliver up to 150MW of baseload power for its data centers by 2027.

With data center emissions on the rise and decarbonization goals at risk, this partnership signals that Big Tech companies are increasingly getting creative with new forms of clean energy generation to meet their growing demand for energy.

What happened?

Last week, Sage and Meta announced the agreement, representing Meta’s first foray into geothermal and Sage’s first time working with Big Tech.

Sage’s technology is known as a Geopressured Geothermal System (GGS), which involves pumping water into several-thousand-foot-deep underground vertical reservoirs, created by redrilling on retired oil wells. The pumped water builds up heat and pressure, which can then be released to spin turbines and generate power.

As Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems, told us, “We utilize the elasticity of the rock to 'inflate' the fracture with water, harvest the heat, and then allow the fracture to 'deflate' sending the water back to surface under a great deal of heat and pressure (without pumping). We use both the pressure (mechanical energy) and heat to generate electricity.”

Meta and Sage are selecting a location and will then proceed with permits, drilling, building, and interconnecting to the grid — a timeline they expect to be 24-36 months.

Why it matters

With energy demand on the rise globally, companies with power-hungry operations and decarbonization targets, like data center operators, are looking for more energy, preferably clean. New EIA numbers show that electricity consumption rose 5% in early 2024, the highest in decades. Despite substantial growth in renewables like solar and wind, fossil fuels like natural gas power plants are still playing an outsized role in meeting escalating demand.

It’s a balancing act, and Big Tech is walking on a tightrope. Emissions from the tech sector have risen sharply over the past two years, threatening companies’ Net-Zero goals and prompting a reckoning over their emissions accounting.

Regardless of how they count emissions, tech companies are looking for 24/7 clean firm power. Geothermal (or nuclear) could fit the bill. And Sage isn’t the only geothermal energy startup heating up in the space — geothermal startup Fervo Energy and Google also announced a power generation agreement earlier this summer. Fervo uses Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) technology, which involves drilling two wells and connecting them via a subsurface fracture network to pump water, harvest heat, and generate electricity.

Source: Open Journal of Geology, design by Sightline Climate

Other key players in next-gen geothermal energy generation include Calgary-based startup Eavor, whose technology circulates a benign working fluid isolated from the environment in an underground closed loop system, like a massive subsurface radiator. It collects heat from the Earth’s natural geothermal gradient via conduction. GreenFire Energy also develops and implements a closed-loop technology that extracts and transports heat from deep underground for geothermal power generation.

And while Meta and Sage’s agreement is only for power generation, Sage’s tech can also store energy. It isn't the only company taking this geopressured approach; other geothermal startups like Quidnet Energy and EarthBridge Energy are pursuing similar strategies. All three can also store excess energy, releasing it during peak demand or shortages.

However, today, geothermal power accounts for just 0.4% of US electricity generation.

Key takeaways

Geothermal’s untapped potential. Big Tech is doubling down on geothermal, highlighting geothermal’s potential to benefit from the data center boom. Why geothermal? Well, one reason is that other promising clean firm power technologies can't be deployed in time. Fusion is still many years away, and while Sage claims they can get to commercial operation date (COD) in three years, no SMR or other nuclear technology could even get through licensing in that time.
No longer a one-horse game. Until now, it’s largely been Fervo as the standard bearer for advanced geothermal (Eavor has also been in the limelight, although primarily for heat, not power, and mostly in Europe). Now, this major project from Sage, a Houston-based company, highlights that other startups can feasibly cross over from O&G to geothermal. With a pool of relevant expertise, will Sage be the second of many to make the transition?
Need for speed. While this agreement is an encouraging sign, there’s a long way to go before advanced geothermal plays a meaningful role in meeting firm power demand. To meet today’s demand, we’re going to need to see a big ramp up in both the number of projects and the speed of deployment — otherwise, natural gas will likely fill the gap.

Deals of the Week (8/26-9/1)

Late-Stage / Growth

✈️ SkyDrive, a Tokyo, Japan-based eVTOL developer company, raised $55m in additional Series C funding from Energy & Environment Investment, Inventum Ventures, Mizuho Bank, and Osaka Metro Co.

⚡ Last Energy, a Washington D.C.-based modular microreactor developer, raised $40m in Series B funding from Gigafund.

🚚 Sunswap, a Leatherhead, UK-based zero-emission transport refrigeration units manufacturer, raised $23m from BGF, Barclays, Clean Growth Fund, Move Energy, and Shell Ventures.

Early-Stage

⚡ Aalo Atomics, an Austin, TX-based small nuclear reactor developer, raised $27m in Series A funding from Fifty Years, Valor Equity Partners, Alumni Ventures, Earth.vc, and Preston-Werner Ventures.

🏠 Moxy, a Vancouver, Canada-based forestry biomass waste-based building materials, raised $11m in Series A funding from At One Ventures.

🔋 WATTALPS, a Moirans, France-based advanced lithium batteries, raised $12m in Series A funding from Supernova Invest, Move Energy, Ring Capital, CASRA Capital, EIT InnoEnergy, and other investors.

🌾 HabiTerre, a Chicago, IL-based farm productivity and efficiency insights platform, raised $10m in Series A funding from John Deere.

🌾 HeavyFinance, a Vilnius, Lithuania-based investment marketplace for agriculture platform, raised $10m in Series A funding.

🥩 New School Foods, a Toronto, Canada-based plant-based seafood developer, raised $6m in Seed funding from Good Startup, Hatch, Inter Ikea, and Newtree Impact.

🔋 Clean Electric, a Pune, India-based energy storage solutions service, raised $6m in Series A funding from Info Edge and Pi Ventures.

⚡ PuriFire Energy, a Cambridge, UK-based green hydrogen and methanol solutions developer, raised $4m in Seed funding from HICO Investment Group, Bulnes Capital, and R&R Investments.

📦 ChopValue Manufacturing, a Vancouver, Canada-based recycling chopsticks into durable materials company, raised $3m in Series A funding from InBC Investment Corp.

🥩 Nordic SeaFarm, a Göteborg, Sweden-based seaweed cultivation and products producer, raised $2m from EIT InnoEnergy and Inter Ikea.

⚡ Ampersand, a Kigali, Rwanda-based e-motorcycle platform, raised $2m from AHL Venture Partners, Beyond Capital, and Everstrong Capital.

🔋 Calectra, an Oakland, CA-based zero-carbon industrial heat company, raised $2m in Pre-Seed funding from Lifeline Ventures, Aera VC, Orca Climate Fund, Prodeko Ventures, Wave Ventures, and other investors.

Other

⚒️ Sigma Lithium, a Vancouver, Canada-based lithium project developer, raised $87m in Debt funding from National Brazilian Bank for Economic and Social Development.

🥩 The Better Meat Co., a Sacramento, CA-based mycoprotein ingredients developer, raised $1m in Grant funding from the US Department of Defense.

💨 Eion Carbon, a Princeton, NJ-based enhanced rock weathering platform, raised an undisclosed amount of Corporate Strategic funding from Exelon.

🛵 WeMo Scooter, a Taipei, Taiwan-based e-scooter rental service platform, raised an undisclosed amount of Corporate Strategic funding from Taiwan Mobile.

⚡ Ohmium, a Fremont, CA-based green hydrogen from PEM electrolyzer developer, raised an undisclosed amount of Grant funding from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

✈️ JetZero, a Long Beach, CA-based blended wing body jet developer, raised an undisclosed amount of Corporate Strategic funding from Alaska Star Ventures.

Exits

🌾 Pattern Ag, a San Francisco, CA-based soil health predictive analytics platform, was acquired for an undisclosed amount by EarthOptics.

New Funds

LS Power, a New York, NY-based power infrastructure developer, closed a $2.7bn fund that will invest in power and energy infrastructure assets.

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In the News

Swell Energy, a leading player in home energy storage, announced it was shutting down. Swell, which installed and financed distributed energy storage, then aggregated it into VPPs, had early success, but VPP marketplaces have notoriously small margins and it’s hard for new players to garner enough customers to scale

The US Department of Energy reported that clean energy jobs grew by 4.2%, more than double the economy-wide job growth rate of 2% in 2023, a reflection of the Biden administration and the Inflation Reduction Act’s push for clean manufacturing and renewable energy projects.

AM Green has taken a final investment decision on a green ammonia project in India that aims to produce 5 million tonnes per year by 2030. The project aims to produce green ammonia using renewable energy, contributing to the decarbonization of the industrial sector and the global push towards sustainable fertilizers and fuel alternatives.

The UK’s Low Carbon Contracts Company has been officially designated as the counterparty for carbon dioxide transport and storage revenue support contracts. The company, which manages the UK’s Contracts for Difference (CfD) for clean energy, will also now support the development of the country’s expanding carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS) projects.

South Korea has announced an $863.7m investment in fusion energy, aiming to solidify its leadership in advanced nuclear power. Meanwhile, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) boosted its funding for nuclear energy, committing $150m to develop small modular reactors (SMRs). These large-scale investments signal progress in the advanced nuclear sector, which can provide clean firm power.

The UK’s Drax Power Station has been required to pay a $32.8m penalty after coming under scrutiny for the source of the biomass it burns, but regulators ultimately ruled that it was sustainable and could continue receiving clean energy subsidies. The decision allows Drax to maintain its role in the UK’s renewable energy landscape, as the UK faces rising energy bills.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) announced new procurement requirements for long-duration energy storage (LDES) and geothermal energy as part of its clean energy strategy. This includes mandates for offshore wind and other emerging technologies, aiming to enhance grid reliability and support California’s ambitious decarbonization goals.

Pop-up

Germany is blowing away red tape for new renewables projects.

Venture capitalists are putting the 'green' in green tech.

The UAE starts cloud seeding and asks: Is the sky the limit?

Chinese investors struck gold in a U.S. mine deal for rare minerals.

California's fight against wildfires is going high-tech — with robots.

How eVTOLs (aka flying cars) never took off at the Paris Olympics.

Scientists want to turn plastic waste into … food?

Another member of Britain’s royal family is taking up the climate cause (see you at NYCW!)

Take a walk on the wild side with this year’s wildlife photography competition winners.

Opportunities & Events

📅 CTVC X NYCW Event Tracker: Check out our public-facing New York Climate Week events tracker, to help climate tech founders, funders, and supporters to find one another and forge a best-laid plan amidst the decentralized chaos.

📅 Houston Energy Climate Startup Week: RSVP to attend the inaugural Houston Energy Climate Startup Week from September 9-13th to network with leading climate investors and startups from around the world who are working to build the future low-carbon economy.

📅 Decarb TechInvest: Register to attend Decarb TechInvest on September 10-11th for an opportunity to connect with series B+ investors and professionals working toward industrial decarbonization. Quote SIGHTLINE-25 for 25% off.

📅 Techonomy Climate NYC: Driving Sustainable Innovation: Join sustainability leaders at New York Climate Week on September 25th for panels and workshops on advancing green technologies and sustainable industry practices.

📅 EU Grants for US Companies: Register to attend the European Market Masterclass on the Transatlantic Green Deal: EU Grants for US Companies from October 1-2nd for guidance on applying for EU calls for sustainability and innovation proposals.

📅 Sightlive: Join Sightline Climate at our inaugural NYCW event on September 23rd. Participants will include investors, corporates, governments, and financial institutions focused on financing and procuring in climate tech. Attendance is limited, but reach out to [email protected] if interested.

💡 Designer Fund Partnership: Apply to the Designer Fund Partnership by October 4th for an opportunity for your pre-seed to Series A climate tech startup to receive up to $1 million in funding and expert design guidance from Designer Fund.

💡 Industrial Innovation Cohort: Apply for the Third Derivative Industrial Innovation Cohorts by October 26th for an opportunity to access funding and mentorship for your cement, concrete, iron & steel, or chemicals decarbonization startup.